


childhood {Huang Renjun}

by toxic_social



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: AU, Angst, Dark Stuff, Death, F/M, Guns, Mafia AU, No Beta, Oneshot, Violence, also not really, i was bored, implied markhyuck, it was 3am, kinda and x reader, no sunshine, not really - Freeform, psych course helps, this fic is why im not failing humanities, what're tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23437699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toxic_social/pseuds/toxic_social
Summary: This childhood starts as it will end. With death.Thank you no longer means thanks for helping, but rather means “thank you for showing me what it feels like to be happy and loved"
Kudos: 9





	childhood {Huang Renjun}

**Author's Note:**

> It was 3am and I was tired don't @
> 
> Let me know what you think!

People all around the world argue about the rights and wrongs of what childhood is. It has been a fight since the beginnings of time. A child should be brought up knowing the dangers of the world, but a child must never know the horrors of the world.

Speeches and speakers all drone about the importance of a healthy childhood, how it should begin, and till where it must continue. 

Everyone is so obsessed with how a childhood ends that they forget about what happens during one.

So for the simplicity of this story, we will start at the beginning of a childhood.

And we will end at the end of a childhood.

Fortunately for you, my dear readers, this childhood starts as it will end.

With death.

—

Huang Renjun witnessed his first death at the age of three. 

(She saw hers at the age of five.)

His own mother was brutally slaughtered in front of his eyes. 

(Her brother, killed in a car crash.)

Renjun's father, a mafia ringleader. 

(Her father, murdered by a mafia ringleader.)

Both childhoods held such similarity, it was inevitable that they intertwined in some way. It didn't take long before they did. 

He was nine when he met you.

(She was eight.)

It wasn't pleasant.

(It wasn't pleasant.)

He found her drowning in blood.

(She was drowning in blood when he saw her.)

But my dear readers, let's zoom out a little, shall we, and progress five years. The years in between are quite a cliche, something that doesn't deserve a full explanation. Don't you agree? There are some parts of stories that are just too boring to be read.

But just to be kind, I'll give you a summary. At the age of ten, Renjun became astounded that he had lived through an entire decade, but he had a friend now, the first in his life. At the age of nine, she was startled that she was still alive, despite having been beaten by men on the street for being an orphan. He had saved her. She had healed his heart. Years progressed with a blossoming friendship, and there was unmatchable happiness that neither had felt prior to their meeting.

At this point in his childhood, Renjun was fourteen. She was thirteen. Many people say this is where childhood ends, but as I clarified in the beginning, this childhood ends with a death. 

Unlike most childhoods, Renjun's was surrounded by a type of dark chaos that she understood. At fourteen, he became the right-hand man of his father. 

"Do you think we're broken?" she’d asked then. 

This is important.

"Maybe. Does it matter? We've made it this far."

Keep this in mind too.

Now, let's fast forward a little more.

Renjun was eighteen, she was seventeen. This is where you must start really paying attention. Renjun had now taken his father's place, and she stood by his side. 

"Are we still children?"

This is important.

He laughed, his hands running through your hair. 

"I'm not sure. Are we still innocent?"

She shifted in your seat, eyes meeting with his. He'd grown into a fine boy, chiseled face with arched eyes and pale skin and hazel hair that glistened in the neon lights of the warehouse. 

"I don't think we ever were."

"Maybe so," he replied, eyes glistening with emotion. "Do you think we're still broken?" Do you remember?

"Yes."

"Then, we're still children."

He’s incorrect.

She pursed her lips, sliding away from his hand. "Then, when does it end?"

"When we're fixed."

Are you beginning to see the connection? Unfortunately, these two are not aware of their childhood's end, and won't be till it comes, for they are not aware that Renjun's statement stands incorrect. Will you be patient, reader?

"And if we're never fixed? If we live like murderers and children forever?"

His smile chilled, eyes flitting away. "Everything has an end." Keep this in mind.

"You're right," you replied, standing from your seat. "I'm going to go check on the others."

Renjun was left to his own thoughts as you stalked away. Four years ago, he'd told you they'd made it so far. Now he wondered if they'd make it farther. If they would ever reach an end to this dreaded childhood where darkness and death filled the years. I hope you feel some sympathy for him, he's been through a lot, you see. 

Let's pause the story for a second, shall we? Reader, have you ever wondered what it's like to grow up for this childhood to end? Have you figured out how yours will end? Perhaps it already has. Have you wondered what it's like to fall in love, to live a normal life as if yours isn't the norm? It's only human to think so, but rather Divine to acknowledge that the life you live currently is Normal. Thus, to live the norm would just be continuing to live. Renjun is one of the few who manages to think this way, you could say that makes him rather pessimistic, knowing that a life of murder and death will always be the Normal. But I think it makes him one of those few Divine.

But just because he knows the truth, does not mean he does not think of those human thoughts of love and devotion and Normality. Now, before I continue with our story, compare yourself to our main character. Be kind to yourself as you do this, and be kind to him, but do you see the differences?

Renjun picked himself up, following your suit after a few minutes. Something clattered in the infirmary, and his heart rate picked up, his clipped short footsteps becoming quick strides as he came to find you. The breath in his throat hitched as he heard the click of a gun. Weapons were prohibited in the infirmary, the single place in the mafia’s stronghold where arms weren’t permitted, the single safe space.

He threw the doors open, his face cold as stone, his expression calm as if his heart wasn’t racing. Perhaps it was just one of the others fooling around, perhaps it was all okay and he was just being overprotective. 

The light filtered in from behind him, and his heart stopped. The medical tray toppled over, one of the victims from the last gunfight standing from his bed (Mark); the one she’d come to check on, in his hand, her gun.

She stood plastered against the wall in fear, eyes flitting to Renjun as she mouthed for him to leave.

“Mark, put the gun down. You're hurt.”

Illusions can cloud anyone’s mind. Imposter thoughts and histeria when life hurts the most. Mark had lost his partner in the showdown last saturday, which had led to his injury. I hope, reader, you can see where this is going. 

Mark’s eyes rolled in his skull, shaky hands holding up the piece, shaky fingers on the trigger.

“Where’s Hyuck, Renjun?” Hyuck (or Donghyuck as his real name) was the one he’d lost.

“Hyuck’s gone out, Mark. Lay down, put the gun down. He’ll be back soon. You should get some rest,” she fibbed, and Renjun winced at the lie, the spike of saudade that filled his heart at the words. 

“You’re lying!” Mark shouted, his finger beginning to tease the trigger. Renjun wanted to scream, to launch himself and take the shot. He couldn’t bring himself to move. Can you imagine his pain?

“I see him dying when I close my eyes, he’s gone and you let him leave!” 

“Mark, put the gun down.”

Renjun was shaking, his eyes flitting to hers. Her eyes met his, and for a blissed second, he lost all fear, orbs staring back fearlessly into his.  _ It’s okay. _

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s oka-

Mark’s finger pressed the trigger.

“NO!”

Everything passed in a hurricane of emotion (I’m sure you can imagine.) Renjun pulled out a gun of his own, shooting aimlessly into Mark’s thigh with almost no regret, the latter falling against the wall, unconscious from the pain.

Renjun stumbled towards her where she was slumped against the floor in shock, fingers red from the blood leaking from her stomach.

“No no no no,” he began to cry. “Please don’t die. Don’t leave me.”

_ This childhood is one that ends with death. _

“Don’t cry, Junnie. Is Mark okay? You didn’t hurt him bad did you?”

He clenched his teeth, fingers blindly searching for the toppled medical tray, and when he couldn’t find it, a piece of his own shirt to press against the wounds.

“Hey Renjun?” His eyes found hers, and frantically, she smiled, as if she knew she was losing time. “I love you.”

He knew this. Why was she spilling arbitrary facts instead of trying to live? He needed her, he needed her, he…

_ I love you. _

Oh. The feeling had always been mutual, just never spoken of. They’d never said those special three words to each other yet, at least never formally. It was always, thank you, which no longer meant thanks for helping, but rather meant “thank you for showing me what it feels like to be happy and loved.” It was always something different, never the real thing.

Tears spread across her cheeks, but they weren’t hers. Renjun cried, daftly trying to pressure her wound.

“I- I love you too.”

\--

At the age of five, love was getting tucked into bed with a kiss atop the head, honey, and milk when she was sick. Love was all the big and small things that made him content, that filled up a little heart till it broke.

At the age of thirteen, love was lazy afternoons of basking in the warmth and being able to feel, to relax, maybe a kiss here or there. Love was comfort, to be pleasured, to be overwhelmed, and to just live, happily.

Now, at the age of seventeen, did she really see, as life flickered away, what love was. Love wasn't always kissing or being content; instead, love was staying. Love for you, being loved, and loving back, was staying throughout the hardest times, to stay side by side. Even if a hand couldn't be held, even if the other couldn't be seen, love was waiting. It was a hug when tears spilled over and life seemed too dark, it was the little things, staying up at night till one got home just to say goodnight, or a little touch there in the morning to celebrate a new day. Love was sunshine when it's cold, feeling the breeze and appreciating. Love was being loved and loving back.

\-- 

Maybe the two of them had grown up too fast. And though they couldn't spare time to act as the children they were, to feel that childish love, those feelings of highschool romances and candlelit dinners, both she and Renjun had found something better. That profound, deep, complicated, and heart quivering love.

She smiled, and for once Renjun noticed, it wasn’t broken.

Do you remember, my lovely reader?

_ “When does it end?” “When we’re fixed.” _

As life seeped away from your grasp, as Renjun shook from pain and grief, only then, did their childhood's end. Because as our story started, with death, it must end with the same. Her death was not what marked the ending of this childhood, I'll have you know. Your destruction brought along the death of both his youth and yours. For the end is not marked until here, where the bond between living and dead is broken. Because nothing truly starts without a finish. So as their lives went, the starts and sparks of childhoods began with death; the remaining sputters of the flame blew out in the end, a magnificent, beautiful end to our story.

Children are broken, fickle things. They know not of what they really want in the future, they solely understand what they want in the present. Maybe that makes them more fixed than we are. And as this childhood ends, like all others, he's fixed. Not wholly, nothing heals so fast, despite what they say. But he picks the pieces back together, and he's getting fixed, he's getting better like he's no longer a child. He knows what to needs in the future, but he missed the present, what he had, what is now in the past. 

Nothing truly ends without a finish, a childhood started with death, filled with the same, ended the same way. Nothing truly ends...except maybe love.

My dear reader, do you understand now?


End file.
